Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Casino Corruption?It seems that only the Allentown Morning Call, and Harrisburg Online are the only news/information sites paying any attention at all to the Grand Jury investigation underway into the alleged mob connections to Louis DeNaples, the apparent owner and developer of the Mt. Airy Lodge Casino. Thomas Marino, the Middle District of Pennsylvania’s US Attorney recused himself from any connection to the investigation as he is listed as a reference on DeNaples application. There are inklings that Marino will step down as US Attorney but hold your bets on that for now. The FBI and state law enforcement personnel are investigating. Stay tuned on this one folks. We would remind you of a previous post over a year ago that forewarned of this issue with DeNaples. For a retrospective, take a look at our post,“Remembering Don Michael Corleone!”from back in early 2006 before the licenses were granted.

Circus Circus at Cumberland Township!A semi-secret meeting [only selected press were invited!] two weeks ago left the Clowns running Cumberland Township thinking they had finally evaded a stinking issue that would have made them look even worse than they already do. The folks from Cali Enterprises of Cumberland County decided to withdraw their request for a curative amendment to allow a water park in Cumberland Township. With the Supervisors all sighing with relief, Cali explained it would only build a mammoth water park indoors, thus avoiding an issue involving water disposal! Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it?

Hardly. Even though the Circus show at the latest Supervisors’ meeting on Tuesday night past made the withdrawal official, it still doesn’t answer a number of questions like:

Where is the Environmental Impact Study for this project?

Where is this project going to find a water supply that does not endanger the water rights of others?

If there is an issue with water disposal for an outdoor water park, why isn’t there one for an indoor water park?

We still would like to know how Cali is going to cram all those buildings – a huge indoor water park, a 400 room hotel, retail shops, and an outdoor botanical garden, plus parking for all of these venues, on 100 acres in the Marsh Creek watershed along Emmitsburg Road not far from Boyds Bears and the Eisenhower Resort.

Frankly, there are two killer issues here: water in and water out. Water out encompasses run-off. Where’s it going to go? Where else? Marsh Creek!

So, again, we want to know where the Environmental Impact Study on this project is? Why has it not been made public, who wrote it, based on what investigative studies, and who paid for it?

This project stinks. It stinks to high heaven. So do the actions of the Clowns that call themselves the Cumberland Township Supervisors. They will attempt to approve this project after it was already rejected by two other townships in Adams County. They have recently approved the demolition of the hotel on Baltimore Street between the Pike Restaurant and the Evergreen Cemetery and its replacement which is scheduled to go to four stories in height. Obviously the Clowns have a short memory. How long ago did the Park Service exercise Eminent Domain and take the National Tower from its owner, and then demolish it? We are talking about a four story hotel yards from the old tower site. The National Tower was obtrusive, as was the music that blared from it as much as 14 hours a day, washing over the graves in two cemeteries. It offered a helluva view, but intruded on what the Park Service calls its historic viewsheds. What makes the Cumberland Clowns think the Park won’t take a similar dim view of a four story hotel nearby?

See what we mean? These folks got themselves elected so they could assist developers any way they could to pave over the township. It is the same in Straban, and apparently in Butler Township as well. Mt. Joy Township is right up there, as is Freedom. [Why in the world would Butler Township authorize a housing development to hold a larger population than Biglerville, and which offers no plan to carry off the sewage the new residents will generate? Where is their water coming from?]

People! Pay Attention! You are letting your county slip away! And while the housing market is a bust, the developers will build commerce parks and malls.

Only responsible candidates, who will be answerable to the voters are acceptable. Get the Clowns and the Strabaddies out of office. Send them back to their day jobs where they can’t do any more damage! Unload the Jay McDannells, and the Weikerts, the Shealers, the Gregors, the Underwoods, and the Waybrights – send them all home! They operate in secret, they answer to no one except the developers, and are accountable to no one. They are in office solely for the benefit of the developers: the Monahans, the Sites’, the LeVans, and people like Cali who want to exploit Adams County because it gets plenty of tourists and the taxes are low. That’s why they won’t build in Cumberland County where they are based.

Wake up Cumberland Township residents! Time to take back your township before it is all gone.

Start with this: Where are the plans for the Township’s expansion project? Who approved the plan? Were any township residents consulted? Where is the environmental impact study for the expansion project? Who did the study? What impact does the project have on Willoughby Run?

LeVan is About to Announce A Big Project!Just before LeVan surfaces to announce, or leak, that he is involved in a big project there is a flurry of publicity designed to show off his philanthropy. Recently, we’ve had photo ops of LeVan and his wife presenting a motorcycle to the Sheriff’s Department, the LeVans donating a car to the Borough Police, and the grand announcement of the couple named to receive an award for their patronage of the arts, notably the Jennifer and David LeVan Performing Arts Center at the Majestic Theater [isn’t that supposed to be the other way around?]. So expect LeVan to soon leak or announce a new project, and it will likely be an unpopular one since he’s being so publicly philanthropic of late.

Could it be a motocross track at the site of the proposed casino? Nah, that wouldn’t qualify him for a casino license. Would it?

We wonder what award they will give LeVan for bringing 20,000 plus motorcycles to Gettysburg during a weekend in the first half of July? How about the “Golden Hearing Aid Award??”

GettysBLOG

We support the Roadmap to Reform!

“Be steadfast in your anger, be sure in your convictions, be moved by the right and certainty that abuse of power must be defeated at every turn; uphold Liberty as the just reward of a watchful people, and let not those who have infringed upon that Liberty steal it away from you. Never loosen your grip on Liberty!" -- GettysBLOG

Alert! Alert! Alert! Alert!

Join the NoCasinoGettysburg Network!

Timely Quotes

"Seize the power back from those who would deny you its use and protection; wield it then for yourselves to secure your lives, your liberty, and your honor!"--GettysBLOG

"Be steadfast in your anger, be sure in your convictions, be moved by the right and certainty that abuse of power must be defeated at every turn; uphold Liberty as the just reward of a watchful people, and let not those who have infringed upon that Liberty steal it away from you. Never loosen your grip on Liberty!"--GettysBLOG

"Hubris is a contagious disease found in politicians who have been in office too long."--GettysBLOG

"Greed knows no limits, and has no character. Greed endures no absolute moral values, and has its own ethics. Greed has no memories but vengeful ones. Greed has no friends and no family, only partners, and partners are expendable. Greed consumes and corrupts absolutely. Greed is blind to itself."--GettysBLOG

"With all its misleading promises about the benefits of a casino, maybe Chance investors really do think they are running a charitable institution. We certainly do not begrudge them their attempt to profit from Pennsylvania's decision to legalize gambling; we only ask that they find someplace else to put their casino. They can put their slot machines anywhere, but no one can move Gettysburg's hallowed ground."--Jim Lighthizer, CWPT

"When we show respect and try to keep a casino from being built near sacred ground in Gettysburg, we show respect for those who fight and for those who did fight. We show respect when we take care of sacred earth. We do not show respect when we even consider putting a casino within a mile of one of the holiest spots in American history at Gettysburg. That idea is so stunningly inappropriate that it makes my head spin."--Ben Stein

"They [the battlefields] were places where people died in incredible agony, alone, by themselves, for causes that they had to have believed in with every cell in their body. And for us to neglect them now and to say it is just as meaningful to have a casino where people are going to put dimes in a slot machine as to have a place where people gave up their lives for a cause theybelieved in it's just insanity."--Ben Stein

TIF & Gettysburg Crossing

Pertinent Quotations

"In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls."--Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

"The shadows of age are rapidly stealing upon us. Our burdens are like the loaded knapsack on the evening of a long and weary march, growing heavier at every pace. The severing of the links to a heroic and noble young manhood, when generous courage was spurred by ambitious hope, goes on, but you have lived to see spring up as the result of your suffering, toil and victory the most powerful nation of history and the most beneficent government ever established. While you are in the sear and yellow leaf your country is in the spring-time of the new life your victory gave it. This is your abundant and sufficient reward." --Rufus R. Dawes

"I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy." --James Longstreet

"That we can come here today and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant army of Northern Virginia and their descendants, establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections, and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured to the common benefit of all." --William Howard Taft

"I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong." --Lord Acton

"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern...Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." --Thomas Paine

"The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice" --John Adams

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." --Thomas Jefferson

"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights." --Thomas Jefferson

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens." --Thomas Jefferson

"The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." --Thomas Jefferson

"To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call." --Thomas Jefferson

"It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it." --Thomas Jefferson

"I am ever unwilling that [peace] should be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of the nations can be preserved. But whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies." --Thomas Jefferson

"By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson

"Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations." --Thomas Jefferson

"It is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country to preserve peace, to punish acts in breach of it, and to restore property taken by force within its limits." --Thomas Jefferson

"By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." --Thomas Jefferson

"We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." --Benjamin Franklin

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." --Abraham Lincoln

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." --Abraham Lincoln

"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me." --Abraham Lincoln

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragementto industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." --Abraham Lincoln

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." --Abraham Lincoln

"If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage." --Abraham Lincoln

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group." --Franklin D. Roosevelt

"War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing." --George W. Bush

"When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one." --Abraham Lincoln

"To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours." --Mark Twain

"It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character." --Arthur Schopenhauer

"When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them." --Plato

"He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun." --John Milton

"Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character." --Henry Clay

"There is nothing so comfortable as money, but nothing so defiling if it be come by unworthily; nothing so comfortable, but nothing so noxious if the mind be allowed to dwell upon it constantly. If a man have enough, let him spend it freely. If he wants it, let him earn it honestly. Let him do something for it, so that the man who pays it to him may get its value. But to think that it may be got by gambling, to hope to live after that fashion, to sit down with your fingers almost in your neighbours pockets, with your eye on his purse, trusting that you may know better than he some studied calculations as to the pips concealed in your hands, praying to the only god you worship that some special card may be vouchsafed to you, that I say is to have left far, far behind you, all nobility, all gentleness, all manhood!" --Anthony Trollope: The Duke's Children